What to Expect

Many organizations want to make decisions that reflect the realities of the people they serve but feel delayed by new systems, long surveys, or the sense that they need more capacity before they can act.

In reality, most teams already have access to enough information to start identifying patterns, understanding inequities, and questioning who is being left out.

This session explores how publicly available data and simple visualization techniques can be used to see who your services may be meeting, who is being missed, and how services can better match community needs. We will walk through SWIM’s Service Area Assessment approach, a process designed to ground decisions in place, historical context, and lived experiences.

You will hear directly from a client who recently completed this process and used the findings to clarify their strategy, rethink how services were showing up across their region, and reallocate resources toward under-resourced communities.

Whether you work in hunger relief, health, housing, workforce development, or any other sector, you’ll walk away with a clearer understanding of how to:

• Make informed decisions even with limited team capacity

• Visualize patterns that spark better conversations at every level of your organization

• Identify opportunities for impact before asking your community for one more survey or dataset

If you want to use data as a tool for accountability and learning rather than extraction, this session offers a practical starting point for evolving services alongside community needs.

Meet Your Speakers

Jury Paulson

Director of Community Impact at Harvesters—The Community Food Network

Jury has worked at mission-driven nonprofit organizations his entire career. At Harvesters he leads a passionate team that empowers 600+ agency partners to assist neighbors facing food insecurity across 27 counties in Missouri and Kansas. Dedicated to public service, Jury also serves as First Lieutenant with the 548th Transportation Company of the Missouri Army National Guard. He holds two masters degrees — one in Public Policy and one in Legal Studies.

Jordan Vernoy

Jordan is driven by the faces and stories of people he’s met across the country who are struggling to meet their most basic needs. With more than a decade of experience in the Feeding America network, he has worked alongside local organizations, food banks, and national leaders to reimagine how we fight hunger. His passion is helping people see the human side of food insecurity and inspiring bold action to end it.